Blog Comments & Posts

Diving into Conversion Rate Optimization for the first time can be a challenge, and Optimizely is one of those tools you will quickly encounter. Through this post I'm going to cover 6 features I wish I had known from day one that have helped improve my use of Optimizely.

Space "above the fold" was once used to present users with as many options and navigational pathways as possible. People today are far more willing to scroll, but we still need to convince them that the rest of our page is worth their time.

Thanks for taking the time to read the post and leave a comment. I think the learning curve is where Optimizely is great, the drag and drop editor can allow beginners to set up tests from day one. It is beyond that point where the curve becomes much steeper.

I would recommend setting up a 301 for that page. You could continue to use that page over and over again for future tests, however the data could be made dirty by return visitors who have bookmarked the variation URL.

As such my recommendation would be to always use a new URL for future tests to ensure new and return visitors are equally bucketed, and to achieve accurate test results.

@Hardev and Jeremy - As Doug explained , Optimizely doesn't provide you with traffic. It allows you to create CRO tests that can easily be displayed to existing traffic that comes to your site. The packages they offer are purely for the amount of visitors that Optimizely can display tests to per month.

Whilst describing putting "the most important content" above the fold what I meant is the following. Instead of placing everything up there take the most important element of the page and place it there. Give it a really great proposition value (that is the hard part) to engage the user.

Its that part where we are fighting to win their 80% of attention and keep it. This is the point we try to encourage our users to scroll further down to find out more.

Thanks for the comment. Great point about less-savvy web users. Whilst more and more people are now web-savvy there are still a huge amount of users who need guidance. Remember these are the people who could be your future customers.

Amazing(ly bad) UX example you shared with me from E! Online. Perfect example of the need to test screen size! On my 1440x900 I could just about see the start of the article. Drop it down to my smaller laptop screen of 1366x786 and all I could see was adverts. Like yourself I would love to see their bounce rate etc.

It may lead to real user interaction, but we also have to consider how users will perceive these brain teasers. By introducing "new captchas" we are asking the user to change habits. They are used to one of two things currently.

Not being presented with Captcha

Filling in the annoying Captchas we have long experienced

All of a sudden we re-invent captcha to make it more gamified. Lets look at this from a UX point of view. You are looking to purchase a book and then all of a sudden you have to play a game based on putting keys into a door. The context doesn't quite fit. I'm sure many users would be like, "what is this?!?"

No problem. Alongside showing everyones personal dislike for them, I think it's important to show the potential impact upon conversions. If you still have trouble convincing your boss, try to pitch to him to split test and see the impact upon your own site. The conversion rates will vary dependent upon where Captcha is used and what its purpose is.

I'm aware this is an old post but just came across it whilst doing some research. It also includes my favourite typo of the day, "You could also include a special badge for top contributors (with a rank number) that communicates their accomplishment. Leaderbeard, Email, Sharing, Badges. Double Rainbow." I would love to have the lead beard!Having literally just started over at Distilled, I found this really cool and gave me some great ideas.Thanks!!!